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Indexed News on:

--the California "Mega-Park" Project

Tracking measurable success on efforts across California to preserve and connect our Parks & Wildlife CorridorsWE POST NEWS THREE WAYS:1. long detailed stories on blogspot (here!)2. short messages on Twitter3. automated news feeds from CA enviro websites in the right-hand column which change frequently and are not archived by our website (that's why we now have a twitter account to permanently capture the memorable feeds)

11/13/2011--says the California Farm Bureau attorney. "I should know what a crop is, and it doesn't fit my definition of a crop."

...In Fresno County alone, where the $5.8 billion in annual agriculture production is often the highest of any U.S. county, the stakes are high. At least 32 applications for utility-scale solar projects are on file since the first one was approved in July, and four more are planned here by Pacific Gas & Electric, which gets its approval from the state. The result would be a patchwork of solar collectors scattershot across prime farmland.

Planners say they can't recall ever having so many permit applications pending for one type of development, even in the heydays of the home building boom.

A bill signed in October by Gov. Jerry Brown could make marginal land far more attractive for development. The law will expedite the process by which poor soil can be developed with solar by allowing owners to more easily end their Williamson Act contracts, which grant lower tax rates in exchange for keeping the land in agriculture for 10 years.

The law should expedite development of the 30,000-acre Westlands Solar Park 60 miles southwest of Fresno, one project that has the support of the major environmental groups. All of the land is either of marginal quality or without a reliable water source, but is covered by hundreds of contracts that would have had to be undone individually...

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Sierra Club's longtime chief departs over rift over solar farms in the desert and other compromises; he supported them, members oppose them

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) today announced the completion of a 400-acre land acquisition about 50 miles northeast of San Diego in northern San Diego County. BLM purchased the $1.2 million Adams/Sky Oaks property just before the FLTFA expired. The property is adjacent to the Johnson Canyon Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC).

In partnership with The Conservation Fund, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has recently enhanced protection of this area’s wild beauty with the acquisition of a 400-acre property in northeastern San Diego County. Located adjacent to the Cleveland National Forest, Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail and Anza Borrego Desert State Wilderness, the protected tract will permanently secure a portion of the San Luis Rey River’s upper watershed, safeguarding water quality and connecting vulnerable wildlife habitat….Over the past six years, The Conservation Fund has partnered with the BLM and California’s Resource Legacy Foundation Fund to protect 13 tracts totaling more than 4,600 acres in the Beauty Mountain Management Area.

An environmental group that sued Riverside over a city-approved warehouse project on Alessandro Boulevard announced a settlement Tuesday that requires environmentally friendly buildings and protection of animal habitat.
The project, a business park on an 80-acre site on the north side of Alessandro, can now go forward. Plans for a similar industrial development on the south side of Alessandro, just outside city limits, are still in litigation.
Both suits were part of several environmentalist groups' efforts to firm up the protection of habitat for the endangered Stephens' kangaroo rat. The groups have said the northern parcel already was protected by a 1996 conservation plan, but local officials responded that a "mapping error" included the business park property in the plan.
The settlement -- between the Center for Biological Diversity , the Friends of Riverside's Hills, the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society, the San Gorgonio chapter of the Sierra Club , and developer WR Holdings -- requires that about 42 acres be donated to the city of Riverside to become part of the adjacent Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park...

11/2/2011--The developer of a contentious, 4,654-acre Eagle Mountain landfill project proposed for an area just east of the Coachella Valley and south of Joshua Tree National Park has filed for bankruptcy.

Mine Reclamation LLC officials said Monday that the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal bankruptcy court in Riverside County.

Richard Stoddard, Mine Reclamation's president, said the bankruptcy filing is necessary to “protect the company,” which has invested nearly $85 million in permitting and legal fees, but has been unsuccessful in opening the landfill.

…Had the landfill project been successful, it would have benefited retired Kaiser steel workers. They had hoped the landfill project would provide a source of funding for the full restoration of their benefits that they lost when Kaiser Steel Company closed.

Ron Bitonti, chairman of the Kaiser Voluntary Employee Benefit Association, said when the project was first introduced, his group had more than 8,000 members, and many have died.

“Now, due to the delays caused by the litigation initiated by a few environmental extremists and the delays caused by the courts, we are down to approximately 3,500 members,” Bitonti said.

Kaiser Ventures, which owns 83 percent of the struggling Mine Reclamation LLC, rejected a push by Eagle Mountain landfill foes to turn the land over to the public.

…There may be more litigation to come, he said. The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, which agreed to pay $41 million for the landfill, have threatened to sue Mine Reclamation to force it to overcome all the obstacles and continue permitting the landfill at the company’s expense, Cook said. Mine Reclamation has given the county a choice of proceeding with the purchase or terminating the sale.

--the last 16 mile plan cutting through a state park was rejected by CA and Bush administrations
--Now, road pavers seek to extend the tollroad-freeway 5 miles to the Ortega Highway, 11 miles shy of the original planned connection to the 5 freeway.

11/7/2011--By tapping into an aquifer the size of Rhode Island under the 35,000-acre Cadiz ranch, proponents say they can supply 400,000 people with drinking water in only a few years.
If the plan sounds familiar, it is. A decade ago, Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Water District narrowly rejected it when it faced widespread environmental opposition. A scaled back version has resurfaced with a greener pitch, momentum from five water agencies and what the company claims is better science to win over skeptics.
"Do we need additional water supplies? Yes. Do we need groundwater storage? Yes," said Winston Hickox, a Cadiz Inc. board member who headed the California Environmental Protection Agency. "The question is ’OK, environmental community, what are your remaining concerns?’ I don’t know."...